one who stands before the cherubim: part 101/06/2007 "hey, sweetie, i'm gonna be at soleil and alex's apartment. my car is being repaired, so i'll be taking the bus. see you there!" "thanks, jojo <3" Terri was waiting for Soleil or Alexandra to open the door after ringing the bell. Just as she was about to look at her phone, Alexandra opened the door, and greeted her. "Hey, Terri. How are you?" Terri responded, "Terrible. The rain damaged my hair and the wind kept fucking with my umbrella. Is it ok if I leave it next to the radiator for it to dry?" Alexandra told her it would be a bad idea and gave her a plastic bag. After that, Terri sat in the living room couch, and turned on the TV, but was dissapointed that Survivor would not be playing for 4 hours. "You got any DVDs? I hate daytime television." Alexandra gave her 3 of her DVDs to Terri. The first one was a shitty gore film about a bear possessed by the devil killing people for no reason. The second was some sort of Twilight parody. The last was a documentary that her favorite band, Cherry Novocaine, released last year. It was a prog/emo fusion band that Terri was familiar with due to Joel playing one of their songs on their first date, but not remembering which song he played specifically, only on their most popular album, Blood on the Beach. She planned to watch the documentary until Soleil came out of the kitchen. Soleil greeted her with a more light and silly tone than Alexandra. Terri hugged her and Soleil told her that she wanted to show something she just made. When Terri got into her room, she was more than stunned. Soleil's room felt like the I Spy books she read during her youth, and of a mad scientist's. It was covered in psychidelic artwork, weird machines, and silly trinkets. "Terri, you good?" Terri nodded and stated, "Where is your little machine of yours?" Soleil told her, "Just let me get it. It's fragile and I spent last week on it. It's for communicating with aliens. I also gotta get my notebook." Terri was about to chuckle. She never believed aliens were real and felt that most alien sighting stuff was just bullcrap. However, she was too nice to voice her opinions on Soleil's machine. Soleil showed her the machine. It looked like a radio from the 70s, but with a big screen that said "ALIEN TRANSMISSION NOT DETECTED" and "S.L. FISCHER 2007" "So Terri, I use this to contact alien signals from outer space. I've read documents that NASA uses for their spacecraft. I'm quite good at math and shit, and I think I've gotten a couple. It takes a while, but you know what they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. It's portable, but I usually keep it in my house or the balcony if I can't take it outside to get better signals. I also heard some signals from my brother Corey's house, but he hasn't talked to me for a while. I think he's sick but he hasn't texted me. I hope he's doing well." Terri wished Soleil well, and looked at the machine. She stared attentively at Soleil, as she attempted to turn on the machine, but wouldn't recieve signals. "DAMN STUPID MACHINE WON'T FUCKING WORK!!!!" Although Terri didn't know much about engineering, let alone experimental machines built for alien transmissions, she tried to comfort Soleil and asked her for some chips. Soleil accepted her offer. The door rang, and Soleil went to the door, and when she opened it, Joel came. "Jojo, what happened? It's been 25 minutes." Joel stated, "Terri, please forgive me. The bus was delayed and there was a car crash on the usual route. I had to take a 10 minute detour." Terri offered her a hug and comforted him. "I understand." He then put his coat and umbrella on the coat hanger and an umbrella bag. She showed him Soleil's machine, and Joel was more into Soleil's machine than Terri. Joel believed in the supernatural and aliens, but never really made any of these machines. Joel stared at the machine, while Terri and Alexandra watched the Cherry Novocaine documentary. "Jojo, remember this band? It reminds me of you....OH WAIT THE SONG FROM OUR DATE! JOJO COME!!!!" Joel came and watched the documentary with her and Alexandra. He didn't like the band as much as when he used to play their songs with Terri, but watched it anyway. While they watched TV in the living room, Soleil detected something weird. A big signal for the first time, but didn't feel alien. Felt something....occult. Aggressive. Eldritch as well. Soleil stared at the machine, ready to record the results.Drowning In MyselfVoices echoed down the hall as Jazz left the group. They didn't need her there to decide the plans. Once she made it to the room she claimed as hers in the mansion, Jazz sat at the desk. She rested her head in her arms with a sigh as she watched the birds outside the window that was just to the left. Does it really matter if the Blackjacks win? What could they do? Just a bunch of random people following a Celestialite couldn't do anything. Let the rest of the Celestials, or even the monarchs, handle the whole situation. Vague images of her mom danced in Jazz's mind as she closed her eyes. I need help. Some days were better than others, sure, especially when she was getting along with Chance and Ace, or could go see Ed, but all the stress of the current events had taken a bigger toll on her than she realized. Jazz shivered, noticing that she didn't even care if she made it out of this battle or not. She couldn't keep living like her life was already over. She was one of the youngest in this whole mansion, damnit! Would any of them care, though? All she had was her super speed, and she'd never harmed someone with her bat and bow before. Maybe it was better to sneak off somewhere far away and start a new life, find someone to take her in, or maybe she could move in with Ed? Jazz shook her head. Life here wasn't bad, and despite the occasional bickering with Chance, it was peaceful. If she could get help, could she really learn to love life again? What was it even like? Was there any hope for her at all? Jazz promised to herself that she'd do her part in the battle, then once everything was over, she'd seek the help she'd so desperately needed all these years.person